


Piles of Pillows

by isabeau25



Series: A Wing and a Prayer [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Wing AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau25/pseuds/isabeau25
Summary: Lance gets some help settling into the Castle Ship.





	Piles of Pillows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 6 of the April 2018 Platonic VLD Week.

“So you’re who’s been pilfering all the pillows.”

Lance yelped, his wings flaring out for balance and his armload of pillows and blankets falling to the floor.

“Don’t scare me like that,” Lance put a hand to his chest, all his feathers puffed out like a dandelion in seed.

“I was wondering where all the linens were going,” Coran reached down to help him start picking up pillows, “I thought for sure it was the mice again.”

“No,” Lance shook his head, wings fluttering nervously, “just me. Well, maybe not just me. The others might be taking some for their nests too. Well, probably not Hunk, since he’s mostly happy with whatever I do with our nest, and Pidge barely sleeps, and who knows what Keith does; he probably sleeps in his clothes like a weirdo, but…” 

“Nesting,” Coran said thoughtfully, as he folded the blankets that had fallen “fascinating. We once had a delegation from Cunicularia. Lovely feathers, but they didn’t fly. Instead they burrowed. We had to rearrange an entire wing of the castle and add three meters of soil.”

“That sounds dusty,” Lance accepted the blankets back.

“Quite,” Coran gathered up the pillows, stacking a few of them on the pile of blankets in Lance’s arms, “we were cleaning dirt out of the air filters for phoebs. Do you want some help carrying these?”

“Is that okay?” Lance asked tentatively.

“I’m not so old that I can’t carry a few pillows,” Coran huffed.

“Not that,” Lance laughed, “is it okay that I’m taking so much stuff.”

“Of course,” Coran turned on his heels, leading the way to Lance’s room, “the Castle is more than capable of providing for upward of a thousand people. Surely we have enough pillows and blankets for five.”

“You have enough pillows for a thousand people,” Lance murmured in awe, “how big would it be if we piled them all together?”

“Too big to fit in your room, I would think,” Coran’s mustache twitched slightly in amusement.

“I have to tell Hunk,” Lance muttered under his breath.

Coran stepped into Lance’s room, careful not to step on any of the blankets or pillows already scattered around it. He couldn’t make out any pattern to their placement, but he knew some species were quite particular about their space.

“Where would you like these?” Coran asked.

“Anywhere,” Lance dropped his arm load onto the two mattresses pushed together on the floor, “thanks for the help.”

Coran set his armload on the empty bed platform and looked around the room thoughtfully. With the two mattresses on the floor it was rather cramped, but the pictures stuck to the wall and the scattered odds and ends on the floor gave the space a homey feel.

“There’s a species in the the Parmilium system that create marvelous hanging nests from nothing but reeds and their own spit,” Coran cocked his head to the side.

“Ew,” Lance sat down in the middle of the mattresses, stretching his wings, then folding them neatly along his back.

“A bit smelly,” Coran sat down on the bed platform, “impressive though. They were only seven or eight centimeters big, and they built structures large enough for visiting Altean dignitaries without the need to shape-shift.”

“Can you grow wings?” Lance looked up from tossing pillows down towards one end of the mattresses and blankets to the other. 

“No,” Coran laughed, “but wouldn’t that be something. I supposed a really talented shifter could sprout feathers. I should make Allura practice that; it would be a good exercise for her, but she already has so many things she’s trying to learn…”

Coran trailed off, feeling a twinge of sadness. At Allura’s age, she should have been just starting to take on court responsibilities, not leading a guerrilla war against a 10,000 year old evil empire. 

“Coran?” 

Coran blinked and found Lance had scooted across the mattress to sit at his feet and was looking up at him with concern. 

“Well, we all must adapt,” Coran reached down and patted Lance’s shoulder, “you paladins are doing so splendidly.” 

“It doesn’t feel that way most of the time,” Lance slumped against his leg, leaning his head on his knee.

Coran studied him for a moment, then began running his fingers through Lance’s hair. Lance rested contently against him for a few minutes before suddenly blinking and straightening. 

“Sorry,” Lance’s wings shifted, his feathers fluffing out a bit before settling, “you and Allura have had to deal with way more than us. We all wanted to go into space after all.”

Coran huffed and rumbled Lance’s hair hard enough to make him duck. 

“Perspective is a valuable thing, but hardship isn’t a competition,” Coran flicked his nose, “I doubt any of you were expecting to be embroiled in an ancient intergalactic war.”

“Not so much,” Lance rubbed his nose.

“Nor did we, and I can tell you it was quite a shock,” Coran folded his arms grumpily, “but there’s nothing to be done about it now. We just have to keep moving forward and do our best to make sure the end of our world isn’t the end of everyone else’s.”

“We’ll help,” Lance leaned his head back against Coran’s knee, “or at least, we’ll try.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Coran went back to running his fingers through Lance’s hair.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, Lance’s wings relaxing and puffing up slightly as they did when someone was preening them. Coran would have liked to have learned how to properly preen the paladins’ wings, but he was still feeling out how intimate an action it was, and how appropriate it would be for him to ask. Lance seemed content enough for now to have his hair stroked though.

“Coran?” Lance tentatively broke the calm.

Coran hummed in response.

“If we did want to pile up a thousand people worth of pillows…?”

“Oh, the ballroom for sure,” Coran grinned cheerfully, “and the back wall is excellent for projecting movies onto, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Coran, you’re amazing,” Lance sighed happily.


End file.
